How do political cultures take shape, and why do they fissure? Do border closures make minority identities stronger or weaker in the long run? How does state repression transform family dynamics - and when can family decisions about identity, in turn, shape national or even international politics? How can answering questions about identity politics inform policies designed to integrate people with politicized ethnic backgrounds? These questions motivate my research agenda on authoritarianism, immigration, and identity transmission decisions among Balkan-originating populations and beyond. 

I am a social scientist currently based at the University of Mannheim - with a specialization in the origins and consequences of nationalism. I earned my PhD in comparative politics from the University of Notre Dame in 2024 after studying political science and international relations in Atlanta, Georgia; Athens, Greece; and St Andrews, United Kingdom. My dissertation examined how ethnic repression and recognition shape the politicization of identity, combining archival research, interviews, and causal inference with original data from communist Albania. When teaching, I emphasize the nexus between theory and empirical work. In addition to academic work, I consult for creative projects related to migration, education, memorialization and museums, historical archives-to-data transformations, field research methods, and project management. (More about me here).